UVM and college sports from the Burlington Free Press sports department

Improved Hockey Cats still have goals to reach

With one weekend left in the Hockey East regular season, the Catamounts of Vermont are on the verge of securing a berth in the league’s upcoming tournament after a one-year absence.

UVM can finish no higher than its current seventh-place rung in the 10-team league, but a zero-point weekend against Boston College could doom the Catamounts to ninth and out of the tournament.

Even with a sweep by the Eagles at The Gut, Vermont has a reasonable shot at finishing at least eighth, though the Catamounts hardly want to reach postseason that way. UVM wants to finish the task itself, not rely upon assistance from others.

Right now, UVM has 21 league points with a two-point edge over Maine and three ahead of Massachusetts. A tie against BC clinches a berth. Northeastern, sitting 10th, cannot catch Vermont.

In reality, the Catamounts have a three-point advantage over the Black Bears since UVM won the season’s series and holds the tiebreaker, meaning Maine must finish one point ahead of the Catamounts; that does not consider a three-way tie for seventh. UMass has the tiebreaker vs. UVM but the Minutemen and Black Bears went 1-1-1 this year.

While UVM’s match-up with BC is a challenge, so is Maine’s final series against New Hampshire in Durham. Massachusetts must face a suddenly struggling Merrimack team in a home-and-home series.

Vermont has been one of the league’s hotter teams over the past five weekends. Lowell has surged to the top of the league with seven straight wins and a 7-2-0 record for its last nine, picking up 14 points. Providence is 4-1-4 (12 points) over the same stretch while UVM and BC are each 5-3-1 (3-3-1 HEA, 7 points), followed by UNH (3-2-4, 10), Merrimack (4-4-1; 9; 4 straight losses), Maine (3-3-3; 9), BU (2-5-1; 2-3-1 HEA; 5), Massachusetts (2-6-1; 5) and Northeastern (2-6-1; 1-5-1 HEA, 5 ). BC, BU and NU each played two Beanpot games in its last nine.

Making the playoffs would be a hard-earned reward for the Catamounts, who have battled through an up-and-down years after two very difficult winters. In a season in which Hockey East has shown more top-end balance than ever — at least during UVM’s eight seasons — Vermont is guaranteed to finish with the best point total improvement; this of course is qualified by the reality that the best teams of 2011-12 would find it nearly impossible by improve by double digits while UVM, at 3-23-1 and 7 points a year ago, had by far the greatest potential for a considerable increase.

To date, the Catamounts have accumulated 14 more points than a year ago. The next best is an increase of seven points by New Hampshire and Providence. Every other team has fewer points, although some can match or surpass last year’s point totals in the final weekend: Lowell, minus-3; Merrimack and Massachusetts, minus-4; BU, minus-7; Northeastern, minus-8; BC, minus-9; and Maine, minus-13.

All of which proves what? Only that Vermont is significantly better than a year ago but still has far to go and a minimum of a two-point weekend against BC would take it one step further.